Home Between Missions
by maigonokaze
Summary: Tumblr Prompt: "Wait a minute, are you jealous?" Natasha/Laura Natasha comes home after a mission to spend some time with Laura and the kids. Femslash February 2016.


Natasha landed the quintjet in the field half a mile from the farmhouse. She could have landed closer and saved herself the walk, but last time she did that, she squashed half the corn crop and never heard the end of it from Laura. So instead she landed and walked, leaving the quint cloaked and locked behind her.

The door creaked as Natasha let herself in through the kitchen. Natasha paused and looked around for the post-it notes that Laura always had lying around. She spotted a stack on the windowsill next to a cup of pens, and plucked one off the top. "Fix the damn door, Clint," she wrote, and slapped the note onto the door. She turned toward the stairs, then stopped.

Natasha peeled the post-it off and stretched up on her toes, re-sticking it to the very top of the door where Cooper and Lila wouldn't be able to read it.

In the master bedroom, Laura stretched out face-down on top of the blankets, fully clothed and drooling into the comforter. Her feet dangled off the edge of the bed. Nathaniel slept soundly in the bassinet. Natasha picked up a throw blanket from the foot of the bed and shook it out, swooshing it up in the air and letting it fall gently to cover Laura. She didn't even stir.

Natasha slipped into the bathroom and pulled the door closed behind her with a quiet thud. She stripped, dropping her clothes into the hamper next to the jacuzzi bathtub that she and Laura had insisted on. The full-length mirror showed exactly what she had expected. A swarm of vicious bruises covered her body. Most of them congregated on her forearms, where she had blocked the Hyrda agents' blows. But more than a few strikes had connected with her torso and Natasha knew that by this time tomorrow she would be mottled purple with the bruises that still had yet to form. Her ribs ached on her left side; not enough to immobilize her, but enough to slow her down and limit her upper body movement. Red lines wrapped around her thigh where a bola had ensnared her and (temporarily) brought her to the ground.

Natasha finished her self-examination and opened the medicine cabinet. She cleaned the few places her skin had broken and doused witch-hazel over the bruises. All in all, she'd gotten out fairly unscathed.

Cooper and Lila wouldn't be home from school for several more hours, but the last few years had taught Natasha to be a bit more cautious about nudity. They had cut into the master bedroom last year to add a walk-in closet. The bedroom had been gigantic to start with. Now it was still plenty big for the three of them, and the closet had waist-high drawers and shelving built in on three sides, with clothes hanging from the bars at head-level. Natasha pulled a pair of yoga pants from a drawer on her side and a flannel button-down from one of Laura's hangers.

Laura had not moved, but Nathaniel was just starting to open his eyes when Natasha came out of the bathroom. He waved his hands and grunted.

"Shhh," Natasha warned him. "Mama's still sleeping." She scooped him up, ignoring the protest of her ribs as his weight settled against her chest.

"You've been a little monster, I hear," she said as they headed down the stairs. "You're supposed to behave yourself when Daddy and I are away. Save your snot and fevers for when there's three of us here. It's not nice to dump all that on Mama."

He opened his mouth and fussed at her. Natasha shifted him onto her hip, then thought better of it as her ribs flared in protest. She set Nathanial down on his belly, on a play blanket in the living room. He whined and pushed up on his hands, holding his head up to watch her as Natasha pulled a bottle of breast milk from the refrigerator and set it in a bowl in the sink. She turned on the tap and flicked her fingers under the water stream until she felt it running warm.

"Just a couple minutes, solnyshko," Natasha assured him.

* * *

The sun hovered low in the sky when Laura woke. She sat up and shrugged off the throw blanket. The bassinet was empty, but Laura didn't worry. She vaguely remembered Natasha coming in at some point and the smell of meatloaf drifted up the stairs, along with the low chatter of her children's voices.

Cooper and Lila sat at the kitchen counter working on their homework. They jumped up when they saw their mom come down the stairs. "Mama, Nathaniel rolled over!" Lila announced. Laura hugged her two older kids, then looked over at where Natasha sat on the floor with Nathaniel on a play mat beside her.

"Hey," Laura squatted next to them and gave Natasha a quick peck on the lips. Then she turned her attention to Nathaniel. "I thought we already talked about this?" she lectured. "You were going to wait until we were all here to see you roll over."

Natasha rolled her eyes and dangled a toy over Nathaniel's head. He cooed and grabbed at it. "I've already tried talking to him about this. Told him to schedule getting sick between missions so it's not all on you."

Laura sighed and picked him up. She held him to her shoulder and breathed deep, burying her nose in his fine hair. "He doesn't do things on anybody's time but his own," she said.

"Stubborn little bastard," Natasha agreed.

Laura held Nathaniel up and bumped her nose against his. "I can't believe you rolled over, though," she chastised him. "Nat got to see that and I didn't? What's up with that, little man?"

"Wait a minute," Natasha said. "Are you jealous? Because I can totally tell you that he didn't roll over and then you can see his first roll when he does it again later."

Laura laughed and returned Nathaniel to her shoulder so that she could shift around to sit on the floor next to Natasha, leaning her back against the couch. "Not at all," she promised. "I'm glad you were here for that. He needs you here for his firsts too."


End file.
